How to add/correct Samba documentation

Samba man pages are generated from XML sources. Providing patches based on the generated man pages, does not make sense.
If you would like to report typos or any other errors, you can create a bug report and point out the error(s).
If you like, you can provide a patch, of course and earn all the Ohloh credits yourself! ;-)
How to create and provide man page patches is explained below.

All man pages, except the smb.conf man page, are located in docs-xml/manpages-3/. The smb.conf man page is generated out of all the file in the docs-xml/smbdotconf/ subdirectory. There are separate XML files for each parameter assorted by sections in separate subdirectories. To find an XML file for a certain smb.conf parameter, just use the 'find' command, e.g:

Make your changes or add documentation for a new smb.conf parameter or a new command by creating the corresponding XML file. Copying an existing file makes things a bit easier. Adapt the new file to your new parameter.

Build the man pages running 'make manpages3' in the docs-xml/ directory and see if it works and there are no warnings, if possible. (If you don't have a working build environment for the docs, just skip this step and comment in the bug report/on the list when publishing your patch.) See How to build Samba documentation for information on that.

Create the patch, e.g. using 'git format-patch HEAD^..HEAD'.

Attach this patch to the corresponding bug report or send it to the samba-technical mailing list.

Ask for review. The reviewer will make sure that your patch will get into the affected branches.

How to build Samba documentation

To make sure that changes do not introduce any warnings or build errors, the man pages must be rebuilt before committing a patch. If you encounter any issues setting up a build environment, please feel free to ask!

To build the docs, the following tools are needed:

GNU Make

GNU autoconf

xsltproc

inkscape

Running ./configure, tests which tools are already installed and which ones are missing. It also identifies which components can be built currently.

After adding new XML files, you should run make clean before re-building the docs to make sure that your changes take affect.

How to write tests for Samba

Samba uses a selftest framework to check for protocol correctness and code regression errors. This framework is run using 'make test' from a Samba source tree. This framework primarily uses tests written in the Samba4 test suite smbtorture.

New tests can be added to smbtorture in the source4/torture directory. Anyone wishing to contribute new tests should first read the Writing Torture Tests Guide.

How to provide C patches for Samba

You should introduce yourself on the samba-technical mailing list and join the #samba-technical IRC channel on irc.freenode.net to get in touch with other Samba developers.

There are Samba coding standards. To prevent superfluous work, you should read them before starting. They are summarized in the README.Coding file located in the Samba tarballs.

If you don't know what you'd like to work on, look at the list of current bugs or check SoC/Ideas (proposals for Summer of Code projects).

Get in communication with the Samba developers, and talk about what you want to do. This makes it easy for us to tell you "Oh, we're already working on that, you can help!" or "The best way to do that would be..." ;-)

Check out the latest Samba source code from GIT. You can see instructions for how to do this on the Samba development site. For new features, you always want to work against the latest master branch of Samba. To create bug fixes for a certain version, checkout the corresponding release branch. See the Samba development site for more information on current branches.

Write some code. Make sure that your patch is as simple and small as possible and follows the Samba coding standards. And make sure that you license each file correctly.

Test your code. Make sure it works, and run 'make test'.

Commit the changes to your local GIT checkout using 'git commit'. Make sure to use an appropriate commit message, including the bug number if available. Create the patch using 'git-format-patch'.

Submit your patch in Bugzilla or directly send it to the samba-technical mailing list.

Ask for review

Once your bug has passed review, the reviewer can commit the patch to GIT.

Samba is a huge project. Getting into it takes a certain period of time. Don't give up! ;-)
Feel free to ask on all mentioned channels!

A good commit message

Good commit messages are very important. Commits should always be separated in meaningful pieces.
Please make sure that your commit messages include at least the following information:

A short summary of the fix/feature including the Samba version and component followed by a blank line.

A more verbose description.

A bug number if available.

Example:

s3/smbd: Add new funky shiny and groovy feature.
The funky shiny and groovy feature has been added to
be able to do whatever you like. A typical usecase is the
following.
Author